Trendwatch 2K18: Jumping Up and Down On Special Athletic Boxes

Grim days as the United States confronts a missile-wagging Vladimir Putin, unreasonable natural disasters and now, an embarrassing Olympic chapter on the increasingly nuclear Korean peninsula. Despite the best efforts of Shaun “Flying TomatoTM” White and several mighty American curlers, the country that eagles built went home the most medal-poor in 20 years and badly underperformed its podium-claiming potential, according to FiveThirtyEight, a blogging website concerned with important numbers and equations.

To reclaim international glory, the U.S. is counting on the only tried-and-true solution to overwhelming sporting odds: the ragtag band of misfits. Skateboarding, a sport ostensibly invented in the U.S. (if one ignores Josh Stewart’s ‘ancient alien’ theories), offers the best chance for America to assert its citizens’ physical primacy on the planetary stage, while justifying all that feigned ignorance of Japanese security guards’ exasperation over the years when the Olympic torch is lit in Tokyo. No doubt, federal data scientists are building algorithms to rank candidates based on flatground contest consistency, after-black hammer intensity and general ‘swagger,’ that hard-to-quantify ‘X factor’ that could help put the USA over the top in a tight medal race.

But it will take more than gumption and snappy one-liners. To achieve ultimate glory, top-tier skateboard competitors are thinking inside the box: specially designed space-age boxes, to be exact, which have become involved in unique and revolutionary exercise regimens. Jumping up and down on these expensive exercise boxes, human scientists believe, is the closest approximation to the ollie that is possible within the confines of a properly sanitized, chromed-out gym.

Physical advisers to Ryan Sheckler, no stranger to tightly plotted TV dramatics, suggested that he jump up and down on a box as part of his gym exercise regimen. Sean Malto, pursuing a comeback from his gruesome ankle injury, similarly employed a variety of special gym jumping-boxes. Danny Way, in his envelope-pushing way, perhaps already has moved beyond the box to swinging giant medieval spheres. But Americans do not hold a monopoly on advanced box technology, as Brazilian Street League phenom Leticia Bufoni also has come to know the box-jumping technique and its powers.

Nyjah Huston could represent the United State’s best hope for a 2020 golden coin. Having balanced his energy by finally shifting the mass of his long-shorn dreads to his torso, arms and neck via assorted tattooings, Nyjah Huston is pushing the boundaries of possibility on handrails, this week releasing an 11-minute long video part to help promote new Nike products. It is a video filled with tricks made to end lesser full-lengths, such as the curvy-wurvy frontside 5-0 grind, a backside smith grind backside 180 out on a kinked handrail, a mile-long backside tailslide and, perhaps in tribute to Dan Pageau’s freshly funded legacy, a switchstance trip down the fearsome El Toro handrail. It’s unclear how heavily Nyjah Huston has been box-training, but a watchful eye on his Insta Gram site shows that a high-tech training box is never far away in his gym.

Is jumping up and down onto a special athletic box how Nyjah Huston gained the power to contort his body and achieve his ‘Til Death’ tricks? Will advanced box jumping sets help ward off chronic traumatic encephalopathy or are the bros cracking some brews and hoping for the best? Did Omar Salazar predict all this with his yelpy off-board parkour stylings? Is Shaun White already jumping up and down off boxes as he pursues his life goal of becoming a multi-board Olympic gold medallion holder, but putting himself at risk of overgolding?

Ryan Sheckler’s Saturday Night Workout

Earlier this fall, one of Dr. Dre’s many proteges/studio heavy-lifters divulged that the good doctor’s 13-years-in-the-making ‘Detox’ album isn’t coming out. After numerous blown release dates going back to 2005, around the time the US wound up its search for Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, this understandably sent out some shockwaves. The yeti-like album has been called rap’s ‘Chinese Democracy,’ but since that one only took about 14 years to make, the comparison pretty soon might seem kind of unfair. After all, it’s been 8 years since Game threatened to put out his own version, and it seems like he’s moved on. And we all know how hard that is for Game.

Lord knows, it’s tough to take rappers at their word anymore. Dr. Dre hyped ‘Detox’ on XXL’s cover back in 2010, but that was before he went and got a job at Apple, shortly after getting drunk and enjoying his alleged billionaire status upon the sale of his Beats headphone company.

But Dr. Dre’s not the only one. Lil Wayne and Juelz Santana haven’t delivered their long-promised ‘Can’t Feel My Face’ album, alternately blaming Weezy’s jail bid and a badly timed raid on Juelz’s studio. Which happens. And we don’t need to get into Rick Ross’ shifting stories on his past run-in with the law, as in, when he worked as an officer of the law in a Florida jailhouse.

This week, internet ruffians are up in arms again over Ryan Sheckler, that oft-shirtless reality TV heartthrob who’s been moonlighting in recent years as the resurrected Plan B’s answer to Jeremy Wray, or depending on your view of the world, Andy Mac. It all has to do with the new Plan B video ‘B Tru,’ which has been on its own Captain Ahab type of quest to a release date over the past nine-plus years. While Ryan Sheckler and the Plan B team reportedly can gather more footage in one trip to China than the entire Girl team can in years’ worth of visits, they maintain exacting standards.

Anyway, peoples’ boxer shorts, or boxer briefs, or whatever you call it for those like Justin Figueroa who probably can’t be expected to indulge in any underwear whatsoever, are all in a bunch because all that Ryan Sheckler footage didn’t include one clip in particular, a successful backside kickflip down the El Toro stairs. You may remember it as home to the monster handrail that Carlos Ruiz backside lipslid(ed?) in Bill Weiss’ directorial debut for Blind. You might say that people had their hopes set unrealistically high, since those are some pretty big stairs and all. Then again, Ryan Sheckler told Thrasher boss Jake Phelps that he did it about five years ago.

Jake Phelps: This is what I heard, that you backside flipped el toro. Yes or no?
Ryan Sheckler: Yes.
JP: You did. How come we don’t see it? How come no flashes of the Plan B video, no nothing?
RS: I’ve been hurt, man.
JP: So what, they don’t want to keep it going? Stoke me out?
RS: Yeah, we’re keeping it going.
JP: Three flip?
RS: No.
JP: Hardflip?
RS: El Toro? Nah.
JP: Just backside flip? Say it.
RS: Just backside flip.

Flash forward several years — in an interview with Thrasher prior to the Plan B video premiere, Ryan Sheckler says that as the video deadline loomed, he had consulted doctors on the health implications of jumping down the famed 20-stair and still hoped to land the buzzworthy trick, which he apparently didn’t land in the prior years:

Thrasher: You know, I got to go with you when you tried El Toro a couple of years ago, and it was super amazing even though you got smoked. Are you trying to go back before this deadline?

Ryan Sheckler: If I’m gonna speak honestly, yeah, that’s the goal. I’m going so diehard on getting my ankle 100 percent. That’s why we brought in these doctors to make sure everything’s put in place so that if it does come down to the time to go, I’m ready to do it. So I’m just taking it day by day and really, really focusing on getting things strong and being able to take that impact. So that’s the goal. We’ll see, dude. I’m trying.

T: I know last time we were there, you tried the backside flip, it looked perfect and then you hit your nose on the last stair. Does that go through your head at all when you think about going back?

RS: Nah, dude, not really. I just need an extra push, thinking about it now. I watched that slam last night and it’s frustrating to watch it, but I don’t know. That was just a random day. I wasn’t warmed up. I was just amped, running off pure adrenaline and pure emotion that day and that’s how it’s gonna have to be this time around. I’m psyched, man. We’ll see what happens, dude.

Last week the Plan B video premiered at the Ricardo Montalban theater, named for the actor who achieved fame over seven decades that included being loudly shouted at by Captain Kirk of the starship Enterprise. After the premiere version of the video apparently did not include Ryan Sheckler landing the much-ballyhooed El Toro backside 180 kickflip, some of that residual intergalatic Hollywood anger appears to have spilled over into internet realms, where Ryan Sheckler has taken e-lashings for appearing to have lied about making the trick.

sk8intreesquidzero24 If you didn’t land that backside flip ur dead to me@shecks
…
keetnn Do they make plan b grip that sais liar?
…
mijo_gavino I thought the video was called True?
…
torysbonergarage Dude why

Meanwhile, Ryan Sheckler is absent from a laundry list of SOTY contenders published by Thrasher the other day, though some amateurs with no big video parts out this year made it.

Ryan Sheckler’s fans over the past week proffered various excuses: Perhaps he did land the trick and the footage was withheld from the premiere version so as to drive mp4 sales higher when word spread that the for-sale version includes an El Toro conquest. Or that an as-yet unnamed Plan B video, to arrive next year and feature Colin McKay, Danny Way and PJ Ladd, who at some point inexplicably vanished from the final ‘B Tru’ cut, also will include the elusive backside flip. Others, resigned to the idea that Ryan Sheckler did not and will not land the trick he seems to have said he did, credit him for claiming it for self-motivation purposes and offer points for trying it at all, and question whether it is even humanly possible.

If Ryan Sheckler turns out to have lied about landing what many would consider an ‘ender ender’-worthy blockbuster, what then? In the past, it would seem the industry shunned dudes for less. Witness former Plan B revolutionary Brian Emmers, shadowed by the urban legend of a self-aggrandizing letter he apparently never even wrote. Has Ryan Sheckler logged too many caffeine-drink advertisements and emotional reality television hours to be so easily heaved overboard? Or will the internet’s 24-minute news cycle rapidly bury critics’ threads and replies, effectively glossing over the whole episode like so many filmers and light poles photoshopped out of the way? Skateboarding differs from major-league alternatives partly because bars are raised and legends are written not inside stadiums and on some game clock but in K-Mart parking lots on the weekend, or in some ditch in the middle of the night. If proof does not reveal itself in the HD video pudding, what happens next?

Why Birdhouse Desperately Needs Nyjah Huston

Not to put too fine a point on it

In news that may be a ghost of bummers yet to come for Element’s current patchouli-scented incarnation, Mike V’s favorite Billabong subsidiary announced this weekend that 14-year-old Jah aficionado Nyjah Huston has either entered into another plane of existence, or else no longer shares the widely held “Element For Life” view, for reasons of his own. Those reasons could very well be tied to the American dollar; despite current weakness in Australian’s version of the greenback, Element’s pater familias continues to grapple with the same bear that’s biting into Pacific Sunwear sales and claiming warehouse jobs.

All of this, or none of this, may have to do with Nyjah being ‘out of his element’ and entertaining offers. And ignoring the very possibly totally for sure logic that he will end up at Plan B, due to existing Syndrome ties through Silver and FKD as well as Danny Way and Colin McKay’s ongoing crusade to lock up superhero talent… I would like to make the unsolicited argument as to why Tony Hawk seriously needs to step in and put Nyjah Huston on Birdhouse.

1. Tony Hawk understands the child star
Hated on for much of the 80s, Tony Hawk possibly understands what Ryan Sheckler is dealing with right now, beloved by the secular world and despised by other people who actually skateboard. Nyjah Huston, being five years younger and many times more talented than Ryan Sheckler, is a kid Hawk could take under his wing and teach to soar in both the real skateboard world and whatever market exists outside of it when the recessionary dust settles.

2. The Shaun White experiment has failed
Half the kids who skateboard don’t know who the Flying Tomato is, the other half regard him as a fool, nobody considers him a for real pro skateboarder and the leopard-print tights aren’t helping anybody. Birdhouse long ago cast its lot with the cartoon graphic-fixated tween demographic, and with Tony Hawk in the announcer booth instead of the winner’s podium at the X-Games or Gravity Games or whatever, the company needs fresh star power to move those re-screened Brian Sumner decks.

3. Revenge
Self-explanatory. Scooping up Element’s treasured prodigy would slake the Birdman’s thirst for vengeance after Element appropriated his own protege, race car driver and projectile pooper Bucky Lasek.

4. Birdhouse has the money
Or maybe they don’t, but while pro paychecks get delayed at your favorite deck purveyor, Tony Hawk likely continues to sleep upon a sizable pile of cash. Since bringing Birdhouse under the illustrious Tony Hawk Inc. power umbrella, the proprietor has stated that “increased oversight and involvement” in the team will be his highest priority.” This would give him the opportunity to put his money where his mouth is bills where his bill is.*

5. Birdhouse needs a power move
Putting Nyjah Huston on would remind people that A. Birdhouse exists, B. they give a shit and C. that they want a seat at the table as far as high-profile team maneuverings (no disrespect to Nesser, Ploesser, Willy Santos et al). It would also suggest that the company has some sort of longterm plan for the future aside from Riley Hawk and selling repro’d Hawk graphics, which, if you read Sean Eaton’s interview in TSM recently, doesn’t seem especially certain.

TSM: You look at Birdhouse as a big mistake?
SE: I personally do, yeah.
…
Was it disheartening to see Tom Green and Shaun White go pro before you?
Dude, that’s exactly what I’m talking about.

Now, bear in mind that this whole posting carries the major disclaimer of relying upon my own questionable judgment and intelligence, as I prepare to fully fail Nate Sherwood’s “skate IQ” test. Stay tuned as I report back the assuredly depressing results.

*That was awesome

That’s Just The Way It Is

“Made a G today…”

In an age of tumult and upheaval, both good and ill, it’s nice that there are those constants out there upon which we can rely. American Idol is about to come back on, a peroxided Britney Spears roams the Billboard charts, and the Sheckle-Air is alive and well – and in Guinness Hall of Fame form.

Future Shock

File under tea leaves, goat entrails, etc.

Because I sometimes feel this blog doesn’t do nearly as much navel-gazing as the medium seems to require, I’ll be indulging in end-of-year list tedium with regard to video parts and tricks and haircuts and so on. But before we get into all that mess I thought it would be interesting to look back on the 2008 prognostications of another internet commentator, whose anonymous laundry list of skate predictions for this year turned out to be interestingly accurate.

Among others the noble Canucks of Temple Skate Supply put up the list here but I’ll re-post bit by bit, starting with one prediction that finally came true yesterday after more than a year of whisperings:

Blitz breaks up… Flip to NHS… Baker gives up ownership of its name and starts under a new Distribution(deathwish).
And as the world now knows, Flip has indeed packed up its cartoons and kiddie ams and set up shop under Bob Denike’s Norcal empire. The rest is uncertain, but now that Tony Hawk has flown the coop with Birdhouse after buying out Per Welinder and Reynolds & co. have set up Baker Boyz distribution, that leaves the house of Blitz with the Baker name (for the time being)… erm, Hook-Ups, Sk8 Mafia and the venerable Fury trucks. No doubt 2009 will see Mr. Welinder with plenty of time to indulge his “passion for incubating core brands.”

As for the rest of the 2008 predictions:

Rowley and Arto move to a new Burton backed shoe company.
Half right, at least so far, though this was telegraphed well in advance along with the next item…

Burton Buys Workshop and habitat
…which is a dead horse beaten to dust in this space. It did happen.

Appleyard follows his friends and leaves Globe
Or maybe Flip, but as of right now his name remains on both websites, an all-important barometer of team integrity.

Sheckler Wins the X Games and Finally takes his place as the new reynolds
A quick check of the distressingly lengthy Wikipedia entry on Sheckler’s contest performance reveals that he did indeed win the X-games, though whether he represents the new anything remains in high dispute.

Photo incentive photo shopping scandals
What scandal? Things are tough out there, brah. Get those logos in where they fit in. There’s always room for one more.

Big Brother Comes back but only on the internet
True, but discussed years ahead of the Jackass World debut.

Krew gives up traditional skateboard marketing for hollywood glam
This one I’m not sure on, if only because I’m not sure if Krew actively engaged in traditional skateboard marketing to begin with. I guess they had that photo of Penny doing the switch noseblunt, if I remember right. But didn’t they run an ad with Greco doing an actual skate trick recently?

Alphanumeric comes back
They did, though a clothing company returning as a purveyor of high-end (high priced) T-shirts is kind of like a magazine returning as a website…

Circa sells out but hides it by starting a combat division. (pay attention to the left hand while being distracted by the right)
Also true! I have no idea how well these shoes are selling, but you have to hand it to Circa for having the sheer gumption to, in the tradition of Antoine Bugle Boy, see an overcrowded marketplace and say “me too.”

Burton brings birdhouse under its corporate wing
Is there room for B-House to play a sort of un-ironic Skate Mental to DNA’s Girl and Chocolate? I’d be inclined to say no, but it would play into some nice Hawk/White synergies, which I’m assured are all the rage among smart skate conglomerates these days.

Purple Pants become hip
Incorrect, but only because purple pants have always been hip.

24 Hour Party People

Irrational exuberance

Peruse if you will the photos of Rob Dyrdek’s shoe release party and wonder just how long the skateboard industry (or, if you prefer, the action sports/energy drink/reality TV industry) can sustain this mode of operation – race cars, multiple TV crews, all the Monster energy drink one can stomach. Why not throw a party for the 30-somethingth shoe from a 30-something pro? Why not rent out a spot to premiere the new 411? (If memory serves, they were doing this at one point.) Meanwhile we’ll print up big ol’ hardbound magazines – er, books – and hand ’em out for free. And, go right ahead and build that $1.7 million ramp so Danny Way can jump the Great Wall of China.

Meanwhile, retail sales drop through the floor and factories shut down and houses go into foreclosure. (Oil’s down to $60 per barrel though, so maybe they’ll do King of the Road next summer.) Certain of the skateboard internet sphere almost giddily predict the next 1993 year in and year out, and while I don’t expect Tony Hawk to go back to living out of his Lexus anytime soon, you kind of wonder when the skateboard business as a whole is gonna have to take a step back. It wasn’t even two years ago that blank boards killed the industry – how are dudes supposed to make their Cadillac payments?

Meanwhile kids are downloading videos off the Napster and now we’re in a recession. It’s almost noble, the way Dyrdek maintains a stiff upper lip while the ice swans in his Candyland bunker slowly lose their shape. Zumiez and PacSun are bleeding cash. Rumors are a-float about layoffs at hard and softgood suppliers alike. Hopefully those crazy sneakerheads manage their trust funds wisely through this trying time in our nation’s economic history.

But if boards aren’t selling, videos aren’t selling, clothes and shoes are sitting on the shelves longer, who’s gonna keep the free drinks flowing at the magazine/shoe collabo release parties? Is Panasonic Car Audio going to keep flying 300 of Sheckler’s tightest brahs from way back to Vegas for his sweet nineteenth? How many Red Bull hats does JR-Blastoff gotta wear every month to keep current on his Bentley lease?

Will the industry have to live with less? If it does, will that mean we have to wear giant pants again? Would the wise investor purchase stocks in a canvas wholesaler now, ahead of our return to 44″ waistlines? And is Wade D way ahead of everybody on this?

Boil the Ocean’s SOTY Short List

Early and often

Dubious nomination process, predetermined winners and your vote doesn’t mean much – sound familiar? It’s Skater of the Year season, and while you can spam Thrasher’s inbox with all the Busenitz ballots you want, but he’s not gonna win, and chances are Phelps already has a name rattling around his spectacled skull, sans any cares for what the rest of us think.

For better or worse SOTY remains the only skateboard honor that means anything, and the winners, even those that hadn’t already bondo’ed their legend status, have proved the High Speed honchos prescient in the end. So pardon me while I throw out some wild guesses as to who’s in the running this year.

Silas Baxter Neal: An ad in every magazine and a video part for every finger on your hand over the last couple years. He’s a Thrasher cover-getting SF local with Pacific Northwest roots who made his big video debut in Rocket Science a few years back, but even though SBN is one of the steadily declining number of newly minted pros-cum-amateurs who can count his dues paid in full, career-wise, if he won he’d be greener than BA when he got Pen-and-Pixeled for the 1999 SOTY throne.

Billy Marks: Phelps has long been a Toy Machine’ fan and has teased poor Billy with the SOTY/Tech Deck ad conundrum for years, and if Marks ever were to have a shot at it, this would be the year I guess. He has a big video part and a big Thrasher interview going for him, but other than that he’s been kind of quiet, unless you count the ping-pong videos. Plus if he won he’d have to produce another 10 pages of photos for the issue and he seems like a hopelessly lazy dude, ping-pong prowess notwithstanding.

Bobby Worrest: He skates for Deluxe companies, drinks shitty beer, has churned out boatloads of footage these last couple years and seems to possess a Thrasher-approved “who cares” attitude, as well as a sense of humor. On the other hand, like SBN his professional career is none too long in the tooth, and unless you count all his internet antics (which I certainly do) he hasn’t put out a legit part this year.

Guy Mariano: Thrasher likes to give SOTY to longtime legends recently (Daewon, Marc Johnson, Danny Way again) and Mariano is about as legend as they come, except perhaps for John Legend, or Robert Neville. He sets the high bar for street skating video parts and then comes back a decade later and does the same shit for comebacks, what the fuck? On the downside, aside from some of the first Flared-era photos, not much of his recent coverage has made it into Thrasher, and possibly worse for his SOTY candidacy, a lot of said coverage has been in TWS.

Rune Glifberg: This year’s dark horse candidate – representing one of the more SOTY-heavy squads at Flip and an old-guard transition titan who so far has avoided tarring himself with the X-Games brush, Rune turned in probably one of the best profiles of the year to date a few months ago in Thrasher. While Dyrdek’s UAV will turn into a pumpkin before the Flip video comes out this year, Phelps has proven more than willing to hand out preemptive SOTY awards, as Rowley and Appleyard can attest.

Lizard King: I get the feeling the Thrasher bosses have a deep and abiding love for Michael Plumb, but a helping of hairball photos and a side-order video part (even one set to Cam) do not an SOTY make.

Ryan Sheckler: As much as nobody wants to think about it, I have a sad feeling that this is a real possibility, as Phelps’ determination to prove his don’t-give-a-fuckness combined with Sheckler’s win at the Thrasher handrail contest and the prospect of selling a metric ton of magazines are very real factors.

Glasses for your eyes

So, it’s Monday again. Yesterday Paul Rodriguez won a hundred grand in the biggest-money skate contest ever, bankrolled by a couple Lebanese casino magnates, with the bonus schadenfreudian sideshow of Baker Beagle whooping up on Corey Duffel and conspiracy theories a-flying over Sheckler’s possibly not-so-broken arm. And yet all I can think about is whether Windsor James is sporting these same shades in the new Mystery ad: